Finch, economic laws are hyperbole? If you say so. I’ll try to say it even simpler: You create a demand for a product, that product needs to be supplied. Many of the companies choose to supply that product by paying other companies to burn down rainforest. What’s not to understand? You’re so special that your money isn’t a symbolic gesture of support, like the rest of us? So, it’s not a negative thing for me to buy crack, it wouldn’t have any greater effects, because Finch dismissed economics off as hyperbole.
No, I never claimed a vegan lifestyle could fix anything. Look at my language, it’s not definite or concrete at all. I’ve bolded it so you can see what I’m talking about.
“How many things in the world (other than starving yourself and/or dying) can you do to all of the following: 1) reduce the possibility of your being overweight, developing heart disease, and cancer; 2) Not take active part in the destruction of forests and rainforests all over the world; 3) Minimalize the amount of needless death and suffering in the world; 4) Work towards reducing world hunger; 5) Give the least amount of money possible to industries that produces unreal amounts of water, air, and soil pollution; and 6) Show your support of working towards a sustainable planet?”
None of those statements make any allusion to a definitive answer. Never once do I say “stop” or “eliminate” or “prevent.” Wouldn’t you agree?
You said “Unless, of course, you can provide evidence that the meat industry is the cause of (and not just a contributor to) these problems.”
So, things aren’t worth the effort if there’s no clear cut answer in sight? Did I ever claim that the meat industry was ever more then “one of the major problems” contributing to the increasing environmental threat? I don’t think I did.
Have you taken the time to attempt to disprove any of the claims I’ve made? It’s your damn food. Show me a cite that tells us where your cows come from. What do they eat? How are they treated? You haven’t showed me the least bit of citation, for all of the refuting and rejecting you’ve done. You merely keep repeating “I know that already,” and “We need to make changes, but not me personally.”
Dragon, you said “There currently is enough food in the world to feed everyone (Even with meat production), it’s a matter of distribution.”
I’m still waitiing for a cite. Let me know when you can find it.
You said “Why is a human evil for eating meat while a bear is not, seeing as both are omnivores and both can eat vegitable matter instead of meat? Or if “evil” is too strong for you, how about “not good.””
I’ve already adressed this. Humans have a choice. Bears can’t plant vegetables. Humans can. Humans have the means, but not the will, to adopt a plant-based diet. Bears do not hae the means. This is the difference. Also, do bears, on a one-for one basis, produce as much waste, garbage, and pollution as humans? Nope. Not by a long shot. Knowingly choosing to do somthing, when there is a much better option available, definitely qualifies as “not good.”
You said “Second, are you going to show how much of the US’s meat consumption if “rainforest beef”? Or even if Big Macs are “rainforest beef” or not?”
Most rainforest beef goes towards fast food hamburgers. The best cite I can give is that it states it over and over again in the book Fast Food Nation, and all of the author’s sources are very, very well documented. I know of a good quote, but I can’t find it right now. A fellow meat eater, zen101 attested to the depth and accuracy of this book.
You said “And I’d really like to hear you address the corrections to your statements about veggie burgers.”
Well, I personally don’t eat veggie burgers, as they’re not available here. I buy most of my vegetables and legumes from local organic farmers, who use “natural” pesticides. Don’t know much about natural pesticides, sorry. But, there are regulations and protocol and certification requirements that farms have to meet to be labeled “organic.” Let’s see, I’m looking around my kitchen. Literally, everything is organic. Olive oil, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder, ginger, brown rice crackers, peanut butter, tahini, tofu, pressed seaweed, maple syrup, soup stock, energy bars, pasta sauce, jellies, corn chips, Gorilla Munch cereal, muselix, all of my grains, all of my noodles, and all of my juices and soy milk. My bottle of tabasco sauce isn’t organic. Neither is my bottle or coriander. Neither are my B-12 supplements. I guess the water out of my faucent isn’t, either. Sorry. I guess I should give up, since 100% is the only right, strong, American GI Joe way to do things! It’s all or nothing. No other choices are acceptable.
You do realize, of course, that the cows you eat store all of the pesticides they ingest (from their food) in their fat cells, which you then eat, and store in your fat cells, right? You probably already know that, but I just want to make sure.
One last point, from a post or two ago. You said “And since you’re going on and on about it, explain how eating meat (Not “rainforest beef,” but ANY meat) means someone likes that the rainforest is being eroded away.”
I never said that this means someone “likes” the fact that the rainforest is being burnt down. (By the by, does that mean you admit that the rainforest it being cleared away? You acknowledge this fact?) But, if someone still chooses to support an industry that practices these things, that person is not showing their dissaproval. Not showing their dissapproval essentially equates to either not caring one way or another, or actually approving the practice. So, if I donated my money to terrorist organizations, would you believe me if I claimed to not like what they were doing? No, you most certainly wouldn’t.
Squish, so you’re claiming that farming plants causes more waste than raising animals? Give me a cite please. I’ll repeat myself: plants don’t poop. Not in the same way, at least. Do you want to take a guess as how much fecal waste all of the animals in the US produce every day? I’ve read the number, in Fast Food Nation, but I’m not going to go digging around the book when you can just read it for yourself.
As per your comment, the fact that I own a computer and a bicycle, likewise, do not excuse the fact that you eat dead animals. Tag. Now you’re it.
You said “Nope. Plants exhaust their soil, which must be either let to lie fallow for at least three years, or chemicals must be added to the soil to keep it producing. Entire rivers have been damned, destroying riparian habitats, in the name of agriculture”
Cite? Also, you’ve probably heard of crop rotation. That works too, you know, much better than applying chemicals. Soil is often rendered useless by grazing cows, who trample the earth, and conpact the topsoil to the point where it’s so solid, insects cannot turn it. What happens then? We lose the topsoil. Do you not agree that grazing has a very negative impact on soil and soil quality?
Also, I’ll repeat myself, slowly. Do. You. Not. Realize. That. Most. Agricultural. Output. Is. Fed. To. Livestock. ?.
You said “Frankly, I’d rather criticize those parents who condemn their children to mental and physical retardation by raising them on vegan diets.”
Let’s think about two things: frequency and practicality. How many vegans do you know? Very, very few. How many of them have children? Even fewer. How many happy meals have been sold? Says right on the sign: “Billions and billions.”
Sure, I think that these dimwitted parents who don’t know the first thing about nutrition and feed their babies some insane variation of a vegan diet are horrible. Two things to note: This is not always the case, and, there is a “proper” way to raise a baby vegan. It takes a lot of work, a lot of research, but it can be done well. Just as well as a non-vegan diet, in fact.
But, the fact is, there are exponantially more dimwitted parents out there who feed their children the nasty crap these fast food restaurants pass off as food. Do you not agree with that? Bigger number of these dimwits, so this would qualify as a bigger problem, no?
You talked about my approval of “Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens. Probably ducks and domesticated geese, too” going extinct. Cows would be fine and well in India and Nepal. Not going extinct any time soon. Sheep? People keep sheep for pets. Dogs haven’t gone extinct, have they? Same with goats. And there are wild mountain goats. Pigs are also kept as pets, and there are wild pigs. Geese? Geese will be fine. There’s a lake nearby that fills up with wild Russian geese every autumn. Ducks? There’s more than enough wild ducks out there. Maybe they’d disappear fron China, but not the wole world.
It strikes me as funny that you’re so concerned with these animals, yet have yet to comment on the mass extinctions that take place as a direct result of burning down rainforests. Are you not concerned about all of the animals in these ancient forests, as well?
“I grew up on a family farm.” Well, YOU WIN A PRIZE!
“Nature…is what we are put into this world to rise above.”
So, then, by this definition, nuclear energy is natural, domestic violence is natural, porn is natural, toxic sludge is natural, biological terrorism is natural, hate is natural, and everything else.
Also, using that definition, eating meat is unnatural. If it was natural, then we were put here to rise above the practice. But, since you can’t move beyond (rise above) eating meat, it must be unnatural. Whatever. I’ll pull a Finch and play my hyperbole card.
To close, you said “I know that you live in a town of 15,000 (quite a large town, IMO)in Japan, a heavily industrialized nation; that you own a computer, a television and a video game console, and a bicycle. I think I can safely assume that the home you live in uses water and creates sewage, that it’s electrified, that you utilize some form of heating and/or cooling. So, other than eating meat, you use up just as many resources as I do–actually, more, as I don’t even own a bicycle, I walk.”
Yes, I am responsible for the size of the town in which I live. Yes, I am completely responsible for the American restructuring of Japanese society into a highly industrialized workhorse. And yes, I’ll also admit to the fact that you wanted to point out, but didn’t, that it’s my fault that the western coast of Japan has a lot of radioactive material in the soil as I just happend to be one who provoked the US to drop atomic bombs there. Ya got me, there.
Water? Check. Sewers? Check. Heating and cooling? Only an electric blanket and a fan, my friend. They don’t have central heating here. (Earthquakes and gas lines don’t mix well.) Not that this is relevant at all. Just thought you’d find it interesting.
Regardless of whether or not I have a flushing toilet, you still continue to gravely underestimate the waste produced and resources consumed by eating meat.
You walk to work? Yes, that’s vastly more “natural” than riding my beastly bicycle. Even if I drove a car to work, every day to and from work, which I don’t, it wouldn’t begin to have a fraction of the negative environmental impact on the planet that producing a week’s worth of meat for a “normal” family does.
You want a cite? Go read some books.
Can you point me to a good book that says “Oh, nothing’s wrong. Meat is good! It doesn’t cause cancer! It doesn’t damage the environment! It isn’t a waste of resources? It’s a perfectly healthy, sustainavble practice thats good for everyone!” I’d be interested to read it.
Meatros, keep being funny, friend. Surely you must have some sort of genetic disposition towards humor. I hope that it gets you far, in life.
You said “It seems to me Dal that you think because humans are capable of thought that they are different biologically than animals. IMO Humans aren’t even better than animals, we ARE animals.”
What you just said justifies every atrocity, every crime, and every sick and twisted thing a human being has done to another human being. If we cannot be responsible for our own actions, what can we be held responsible for? Man, I sincerely hope you never have children.
It’s so simple. It was even in the recent Spider-man movie. “With great power comes responsibilty.”
Just because we are animals doesn’t remove us from being responsible for what we choose to do and not do. Sure, not better than animals, not worse than animals, but undoubtedly different from animals.
Grow up a little, and you’ll figure that out.
-TGD
